Tuesday, November 8th, 2022.
Hey, it’s TJ Miller, you want some game? Let's Tip Unda The Hat!
For the best indie music from indie artists, click, and follow Independent Artist Of The Week Unda The Hat. This week, Mercy Club. Be sure to hit the like button and follow this amazing group of indie artists. They will be major soon!
Splits in music - Let’s go -
Unless you are like Prince or some other genius self-contained artist that writes all the lyrics, the music the melody, and produces a song yourself, you probably have a partner or at least a producer. This means you need to understand splits in music and split sheets. So here’s the deal, when two or more people write a song it is looked at as a joint work, which is now one work. The words are 50% and the music 50% unless the two parties have a special written agreement saying something else. So let’s say you write some words and then give them to a musician who writes some music, the two of you own 50%. Now let’s say, two of you write some music and melody and give them to the musician the two of you split 50% (25% a piece) and the musician still keeps his 50% - make sense? Again, this is assuming that you don’t have some written agreement to the contrary. Now according to ASCAP, you should figure out your splits at the conception of the song, preferably in writing, and make sure it all equals up to 100%. Accurately register all of your works in detail with your PRO, ideally before they are uploaded online anywhere. Because if you don’t you open the door to disputes, bad title registration, inaccurate royalty payments and just being pissed off with each other and never working together again; and you don’t want that, that puts you in splitsville (check this lil video out) lol that was cute.
Ok, so it’s not a lot of information you need but it is specific. Here it is in a nutshell. Song title, Songwriters, Publishing companies, the percentage splits of the song (again make sure it equals 100%), PRO, IPI numbers (Interested Parties Information) which is a nine-digit code you get from your PRO when you affiliate with them, first use or what is the song intended for, a single, an album project, etc etc, signatures, contact info, and date. Now you know in today's electronic world there’s an app for everything, and here they are; auddly.com and songsplits.com. If you want to keep it old school put it on paper and have everybody grab a pen and sign it. But I know how you gen Zs are, so we got you covered Unda The Hat!
Johnnie and Robert are out of the country so no live Clubhouse tomorrow, But what you can do is tune in to last week's broadcast, because it was absolutely amazing, “Sisters in Law, closing deals in heels. Some heavyweight sisters all lawyers and one judge all in the entertainment field. Trust me you will learn a lot from this one. “Untold Tales of the music industry.” Click and save the link, and look for us next week.
This week's #IAOTW - Indie Artists Of The Week - Mercy Club will be hosting “Men At The Gate Experience” this weekend in Monroe GA. All men are invited. If you are in or around the Atlanta area you don’t want to miss this and it’s FREE. Celebrity chef Waldron and Christian Comedian Pastor Jason Earls will be there.
Click on their name, scroll down, and click the picture to learn more about this talented duo and the event. Be sure to like and share the Spotify playlist.
For more information on this or to hire Unda The Hat as your brand or label consultant send a message via undathehat.com. See you next Tuesday.